March, 2010

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I Just Invested in @Burstly, a Mobile Ad Management Company

Both Sides of the Table

I’m very pleased today to announce that I invested, on behalf of GRP Partners, in Burstly alongside Rincon Venture Partners , an early stage VC in Southern California whith whom we love to work (and were our co-investors on RingRevenue ). Burstly, a Santa Monica based company, provides an open and free ad management platform that helps mobile application developers better monetize their inventory.

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Digital Revenue Expert – Vince Thompson

SoCal CTO

More Visible Networking? this time with Vince Thompson. You’ve got a REALLY diverse background. What’s the short version? Vince: I’m an author, speaker and management consultant with a special expertise in online media sales. I started out as screenwriter, went into local television, ran ad sales in the west for AOL and joined Facebook in the companies very early days.

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Teaching Entrepreneurship – Logistics

Steve Blank

Back from a family humanitarian trip/vacation to one of the last bastions of Communism where “marketing&# isn’t even a profession and entrepreneurship is a crime. The irony is that the “ Revolutionary Square &# in all these Communist countries will be the the first place the McDonald’s go when the system collapses. ——————-.

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The Awesomeness of a Hackathon

Feld Thoughts

Over the years, a number of companies I’ve been an investor in have had hackathons. These are typically day long events where everyone in the company works on whatever cool new ideas they have. On Monday night I got a note from a company I’m on the board of about a hackthon they just completed. As I looked through the list of things that the various teams created, I got chills of excitement.

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Building Healthy Innovation Ecosystems for Your Projects

Speaker: Nick Noreña, Innovation Coach and Advisor, Kromatic

Every startup and innovation project exists within an ecosystem that either helps or hurts that project. As innovation managers, we need to keep a pulse of that ecosystem and make sure we're helping those innovation projects we're managing every step of the way. In this webinar, Nick Noreña will walk through an Innovation Ecosystem Model that he and his team at Kromatic have developed to help investors, heads of product, teachers, and executives understand how they can best support innovation in

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Why some smart people don’t take action?

Life Beyond Code

Why some smart people don’t take action? I mean “action&# that will lift them to a whole new level in life and in business. This is a question that has haunted me for a while. I meet so many smart people during my travels and speaking engagements. when I hear what these people are involved with and think about what they “could be&# actually involved with, it is not difficult to see the “gap.&# They could be doing much more but it seemed like they have resigned to be just

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Speed up or slow down? (for Harvard Business Review)

Startup Lessons Learned

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Thursday, March 25, 2010 Speed up or slow down? (for Harvard Business Review) Over at Harvard Business Review, Ive been building up a series designed to introduce the Lean Startup methodology to a business-focused audience. This is the first post that moves into making specific process recommendations for product development.

More Trending

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Twitter Link Roundup #32 – Design, Copywriting, Marketing, Small Business, Social Media And More

crowdSPRING Blog

Every day on the crowdSPRING Twitter account and on my own Twitter account , I post links to posts or videos I enjoyed reading or viewing. These posts and videos are about design, startups, entrepreneurship, small business, leadership, social media, marketing, and more! Here are some of the links that I’ve liked and shared this past week! Ultimate Roundup of Free User Interface Icons - [link].

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Everything I didn’t learn about startups as a VC (…or why VCs don’t make good entrepreneurs)

This is going to be BIG.

There are a lot of great venture capitalists who started out as entrepreneurs like Vinod Khosla or Josh Kopelman. Going the other way, however, seems to be a bit tougher. In fact, I don’t really know anyone who has successfully gone the other way. Many entrepreneurs turned VCs wind up going back, but to start out on the investment side and then successfully launch a company seems to happen much less frequently.

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Sawyer Opines on the Eastern District of Texas

Feld Thoughts

My friend Sawyer is back with another post in his series of talking about software patent issues. As I mentioned before, Sawyer is a real person named after our intrepid friend in LOST (I haven’t seen it this week – no spoilers please) who has agreed to help us navigate the parallel universe known as software patent land. I’m channeling Sawyer’s points of view as a public service announcement since he’s uncomfortable being named publicly – these are his words, not mine.

Texas 91
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Wasted time is money lost. (And another story of lost opportunity.)

Berkonomics

There is a relationship between time and money that is more complex than most managers think. Fixed overhead for salaries, rent, equipment leases and more make up the majority of the “burn rate” (monthly expenses) for most companies. Since this number is budgeted and pre-authorized, managers tend to focus upon other things such as sales, marketing and product development issues.

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New conference website, speakers, agenda

Startup Lessons Learned

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, March 29, 2010 New conference website, speakers, agenda The Startup Lessons Learned Conference on April 23 is fast approaching. Earlybird Admission pricing ends in just two days. We have a brand new website up at [link]. Weve got a new scholarship program up and running. Most importantly, weve announced a big chunk of the agenda for the day (go take a look ).

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Twitter Networks are Different than Social Networks

Both Sides of the Table

If you use Twitter and think it is a valuable service then you’re probably tired of the steady stream of your friends who tell you it’s just a fad and they don’t feel compelled to join. They “don’t care what people ate for lunch.&# They’re fine on their existing social networks, which these days mostly means they’re happy with Facebook.

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5 thoughts for small business on delivering efficiency

crowdSPRING Blog

In his book “ The Goal ,&# Eliyahu Goldratt tells the story of a Boy Scout troop out for a hike. The goal of the hike is to cover 10 miles in 5 hours, in other words to keep the troop moving at an average speed of 2 miles per hour. As the troop works its way up the trail, gaps begin to appear between the scouts, and the slower hikers find that periodically they must go double-time to shrink the gaps.

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Five common misconceptions about building a startup in New York City

This is going to be BIG.

It’s really difficult for me not to get into the thick of discussions about whether or not you can and/or should build a company in New York City. I grew up here, went to school here, and have worked hard over the last 5+ years to help build up the NYC innovation community. I’m extremely passionate about the topic and so when my city gets picked on, I tend to respond confidently and with the same (and sometimes greater) force than I perceive the complaint to have.

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Shimel Blogs on Open Source

Feld Thoughts

My long time friend Alan Shimel has been blogging up a storm on Network World (if you want to hear any amusing story, ask him about the first time he met me.) When Alan started writing his column for Network World he asked me for introductions to a bunch of our portfolio companies that were using open source. Alan is a tough critic and calls it like he sees it so while I knew there was no guarantee that he’d go easy on the companies, I knew that Alan would do an even handed job of highlighting t

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Social CRM: A Must Read Report for Companies with High User Attrition

VC Cafe

W hile we increasingly adopt the social tools such as Facebook and Twitter as a method for connecting with other users to post and ask for information on products and services, companies are finding it hard to catch up with the fast paste of the social web. As a result, they continue to see customer attrition and get left out of the conversation. In the newly published report “Social CRM: The New Rules of Relationship Management&# , Jeremiah Owyang and Ray Wang of the Altimeter Group adv

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Guy Kawasaki’s 10 Questions to Ask Before You Join a Startup

www.mint.com

Mint is the best way to manage your money. Go there now » Sign up or log in to mint.com Updates Drop Your Debt to Win 2 comments How To The Top 5 Customer Complaint Letters — And What You Can Learn From Them 5 comments Investing In Graphics: What Is a Stock? 2 comments Mint Life Know your money. Live your life. Follow us: twitter rss daily email facebook Personal Goals Saving Investing Trends & Observations How To Mint Updates Glossary Money Tweets Answers Guy Kawasaki’s 10

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What’s it Like Being a VC?

Both Sides of the Table

One of the questions I’m most often asked is, “what’s it like being a VC?&# I’ve been a VC for nearly 3 years now. Since I answer this all the time anyway I thought it might make an interesting blog post. I always start my answer to this question with, “you’d have to be a pretty big baby to complain about being a VC.&# That’s true.

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5 thoughts for small business on delivering efficiency

crowdSPRING Blog

In his book “ The Goal ,&# Eliyahu Goldratt tells the story of a Boy Scout troop out for a hike. The goal of the hike is to cover 10 miles in 5 hours, in other words to keep the troop moving at an average speed of 2 miles per hour. As the troop works its way up the trail, gaps begin to appear between the scouts, and the slower hikers find that periodically they must go double-time to shrink the gaps.

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Cracking The Code: State of the SaaS 13: Q1 2010 Sentiment

Cracking the Code

Cracking The Code. Thoughts from a Venture Capitalist on Software, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), Cloud Computing, Internet and more. Friday, March 12, 2010. State of the SaaS 13: Q1 2010 Sentiment. As we are entering a new year, I thought it would be interesting to publish every quarter an update on the state of the 13 public SaaS/Cloud companies in the Index.

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Dis-Cord: Tech Tips for N00bs to Survive SXSW

Austin Startup

There’s a little piece of chaos at SXSW for everyone; and every year, some folks navigate the flood of people and sensory overload a bit better than others – the difference between a SXSW veteran and noobie is noticeable at first glance. In an effort to reduce apparent nerd-ism, I’ve put together some helpful tips and found some neat tools for first-timers at SXSW.

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Horizontal Or Vertical Business Models: Which Is Right For You?

Entrepreneurs-Journey.com by Yaro Starak

I recently received this unsolicited email from Craig Shinney (slightly edited to protect identities) – I just wanted to write to tell you that about one year ago, I started getting into Internet marketing and experimenting with all sorts of different methods of the various types of blogs and tools that all the different marketers recommend. It was an amazing journey.

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I Will Review Your Website for Free

Software By Rob

Software by Rob Passionate about Startups and MicroISVs Lessons Learned by a Serial Entrepreneur home about press micropreneurs archives ← Recent Podcast Appearances Startup Website Reviews – Episode 1: Reviewing CrmInnovation.com → I Will Review Your Website for Free Micropreneurship , Startups If youre trying grow your startup youve come to the right place.

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Launchpad LA – More Details Revealed

Both Sides of the Table

Today we announced Launchpad LA V2. Full press release with more details is here. We will be selecting 10 startup companies to participate. There is no cost but you must physically be based in or move to Los Angeles for the 6 months of the program. Applications are due April 6th, 2010, the form is on the website and the Twitter address is @launchpadlad.

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The (ongoing) evolution of an industry

crowdSPRING Blog

Everyone knows that the music industry is struggling, right? Pirating, reduced concert ticket sales, and fair use issues have combined to send record company execs scurrying for solutions and scrambling to figure out new revenue streams. NPR’s On The Media (with our friend Bob Garfield) recently devoted an entire episode to a great discussion of the issues and challenges swirling around our beloved music biz.

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How do the sample Series Seed financing documents differ from typical Series A financing documents?

Startup Company Lawyer

After the recent announcement of the Series Seed Financing documents by Marc Andreesen, Brad Feld points out that there are now four sets of “open source&# equity seed financing documents: TechStars Model Seed Funding Documents (by Cooley). Y Combinator Series AA Equity Financing Documents (by WSGR). Founders Institute Plain Preferred Term Sheet (by WSGR – disclaimer, I represent the Founders Institute and was involved in drafting this document).

Finance 70
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What SXSWi Attendees Can Learn From SXSW Music

Austin Startup

Last week, as the technorati returned home from their working spring breaks in Austin for SXSW Interactive, the backlash began almost immediately. It started with Jolie O’Dell’s post , smartly entitled “Why SXSW Sucks.” It quickly followed with the predictable back and forth , and many reporters and attendees said that this year’s SXSWi was too big, too crowded, and too overtly sponsored.

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Do You Want A Copy Of My Definitive Guide To SEO For Bloggers?

Entrepreneurs-Journey.com by Yaro Starak

It was early 2006. I had been blogging for over a year and felt I had achieved something. My blog had recently surpassed 1,000 RSS subscribers ( what is RSS ), making it at the time the most popular website I had ever built. The income was solid – up to $2,000 a month at best – and it was growing. I loved what I was doing. My plan, based on all the Internet marketing advice I studied from the experts to “create a product&# , was to start by releasing an ebook to test the waters

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Joel on Software is Shutting Down. Long Live the King.

Software By Rob

Software by Rob Passionate about Startups and MicroISVs Lessons Learned by a Serial Entrepreneur home about press micropreneurs archives ← Free Website Feedback, Custom Card Designs, Finding Good Domain Names, and more… Paying the Price of Success → Joel on Software is Shutting Down. Long Live the King. Cool News, Links & Reviews If youre trying grow your startup youve come to the right place.

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Don’t be a Grin Fucker

Both Sides of the Table

OK, this will be a test of whether using real curse words in your title or post gets all of your stuff blocked by spam filters or from appearing on HackerNews or the like. I thought about trying to spell it differently (like Guy Kawasaki always says Bull Shitake (as in the mushroom, but slightly misspelled) but somehow it lost the same effect that this saying has always had for me.

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Lawson: Im OK, you are not OK

deal architect

Lawson announced plans to run its Enterprise and Talent Management software on the Amazon cloud. It also announced a subscription model around its license and maintenance cost. First things first – this is a giant step forward for a vendor. Tags: Enterprise Software (IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, SAP).

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The true meaning of common idioms

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

Non-native speakers of English tell me that the basic rules of grammar aren't too hard to learn, but the idioms are murder. (Ok, not literally "murder," that's just an expression. nevermind.). Idioms are used by many of God's great creatures, not just humanoids, as I learned from The Oatmeal : So to help all of us understand better understand American business vernacular or, as our UK brethren like to say, the American bastardization of the rich, beautiful language you so unashamedly defiled, I'

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BidModo Launches Online Marketplace Connecting Businesses and Vendors

Austin Startup

Today, Austin-based BidModo launched a public beta version of its free online small business marketplace where business owners connect with local companies in a variety of business service categories. From accounting to graphic design, BidModo provides an online marketplace to increase productivity, reduce costs and link local companies. BidModo is live nationally in 80 cities with active connections in over 100 business service categories, with the company planning to roll out in each focus cit

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Death By Competitive Analysis

Steve Blank

Trading emails with a startup CEO building an iPhone app, I asked him why potential customers would buy his product. In response he sent me a competitive analysis. It looked like every competitive analysis I had done for 20 years, (ok maybe better.). And it made me sad. Looking at the spreadsheet, I realized that competitive analysis tables are one of the ways professional marketers screw up startups from day one.

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Startup Website Reviews – Episode 2: HowsThe.com

Software By Rob

Software by Rob Passionate about Startups and MicroISVs Lessons Learned by a Serial Entrepreneur home about press micropreneurs archives ← Startup Website Reviews – Episode 1: Reviewing CrmInnovation.com Startup Website Reviews – Episode 3: SimplyBill.com → Startup Website Reviews – Episode 2: HowsThe.com Website Reviews If youre trying grow your startup youve come to the right place.

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What is the Right Amount of Money to Raise at a Startup?

Both Sides of the Table

This is part of my ongoing series on Raising Venture Capital. Recently I’ve been debating with a number of young startup companies that are raising money in the next few months, “what is the right about of capital to raise at a startup?&#. It’s a tricky question with no clear answer. There are trade offs. And it obviously depends on the kind of business you’re building.